Northport gives failing grade to school plan

By Stephen DethrageStaff Writer

Saturday

Oct 7, 2017 at 6:00 AM

Nearly all the net student population growth of the Tuscaloosa County School System expected by 2025 is projected to come from Northport, but leaders there say the school board’s capital investments fail to reflect that reality.

Leaders say the system is building new schools in other parts of the county that aren't experiencing growth instead of concentrating resources in Northport. And while a new school for fifth- and sixth-grade students is planned to open in Northport in 2019, leaders believe that will be insufficient to cope with the area's growth.

In 2015, the Tuscaloosa County Board of Education authorized Walker Associates, a Tuscaloosa-based engineering, planning, surveying and geographic information firm, to conduct an enrollment study to help guide the system’s future strategic planning.

According to the Walker study, the system’s student population will rise from 17,788 in 2015 to 19,119 in 2025 -- a net increase of 1,331 students.

More than 99 percent of that growth is projected at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport or at elementary and middle schools that feed into it. TCHS is expected to grow by 686 students, Echols Middle School by 229 students and Crestmont Elementary by 115 students.

According to the Walker study, the system’s student population would see a net increase of only 78 students by 2025 without TCHS and its eight feeder schools.

“We are the growing-est part of the county and it seems to me that we continually get the short end of the stick from the school board,” Northport mayor Donna Aaron said Friday. “We put more tax money in the school system than anywhere else in the county. We help fund the whole system and we don’t begrudge it, because when our schools succeed, we succeed, but I’m surprised at how we have to fight and claw for everything we get.”

Aaron and others in Northport are upset at a proposed plan from the school board to build a new fifth- and sixth-grade school in the city that would open in 2019. Aaron said the board promised Northport a new middle school almost a decade ago, and this proposed school is not a suitable replacement.

“The traditional middle school was promised in 2009, although it wasn’t a situation where anyone can prove that they said it,” Aaron said. “But these people have promised something and they need to own up to it. They need to do whatever they need to do to make it work.”

In a presentation to the Northport City Council on Monday night, residents Chuck Gerdau and Ray Glenn broke down the numbers of the Walker Study.

Glenn asked the council why other areas of the county can get a new middle school when Northport’s needs are so great, and why Northport students should have to change schools at least four times before they graduate when no other students in the system have to.

“Sipsey Valley is getting a middle school and they’re not even close to our needs. When you look at Holt and compare their numbers to our numbers, they’re under-enrolled and will be under-enrolled in 2025,” Allen said. “We’re right at the top of needs, so what happened when (the school board) was looking at this data that they came up with these schools?”

Attempts to reach TCSS Superintendent Walter Davie before press time were unsuccessful, but in May he told The Tuscaloosa News that he was not in office in 2009 when the board allegedly promised former Northport Mayor Bobby Herndon a new middle school.

“I was not in this role, so I had nothing to do with that,” Davie said. “It very well may have happened, but I would no more promise you that than anything else. You have to evaluate year-to-year and we do that as a school system.”

Davie said plans for the new Northport school are not yet finalized, but the board can’t let other parts of the county slip through the cracks to focus only on TCHS and its feeders.

“We have a responsibility to address the needs of our entire school system, and that changes from year-to-year based on residential growth, enrollment and demographic changes and we have to be responsive to that,” Davie said. “Northport is one of the most significant areas that takes top priority over others, but we have to address the needs for several schools in our area.”

Aaron spent more than 30 years teaching at County High and has remained involved with school matters since retiring. She said Friday that Northport has always been somewhat neglected by the board.

“I’ve been involved in county education for 50 years and I have never figured out why we are the red-headed step-child of the whole county,” Aaron said. “We’ve never had board members that would go to bat for us.”

Aaron said she and other elected officials plan to talk to the county board and make sure they understand their solidarity against the proposed fifth- and sixth-grade school and work with them to find out what needs to happen to see a middle school built instead.

She said some citizens have asked about the possibility of breaking free of the county board of education and creating a city school system, but said she doesn’t support that move. Aaron said Northport would have to at least double its property tax rate to afford its own schools, and right now working with the board for a mutually satisfying solution is the best option.

“Staying in a county system is better for us, I think,” Aaron said. “But if we continue to be treated like this, I think our citizens are going to demand that we look into something different.”